there was a pod of selkies who lived close to the ocean, but not in it. The beautiful, curved women knew they loved to gather together on the rocks in the seaspray under the sun, but the knowledge of the sea was long lost to them. So they lived on the sandy shore as women, mingling with men, who loved having the selkie-women with them always.
There were old tales of selkies: ocean seals who could shed their skins and stand as women on the shore, and tales of men stealing selkie skins to keep the beautiful, wild women land-bound forever.
But, no one ever found any such seal skin. It was dismissed as an old, outdated myth told by foolish people.
Everyone knew that women lived on land, and that a woman’s best life was lived as a wife with many children!
Sometimes, a woman would wander too far and never return to tell her tale. The emptiness of her lost story seemed strange and dangerous. Women were told not to wander far. There is safety on the sandy shore and safety with a family and village.
But, in spite of warnings, young women would still sneak to the rocky shore in the moonlight, splashing each other and laughing. Only to quietly return home, no one the wiser.
One day, a young woman named Naiama decided to explore more on her own. She couldn’t quite name her discontent, but she knew she needed something different, something that was not on land, something that was far away…
and her heart told her to look towards the ocean.
On the other side, she saw a small cove carved into the rocky shore by the ocean below. Picking her way down, she found a tide pool nestled at the base of the black cliff.
What wonders lay captured in that little stretch of water! Crabs of all sizes, an orange starfish, clear blue rocks, four tiny flashing fish.
She walked far along the shoreline, beyond the sight of the village pod. When the wind, waves, and the chattering seagulls were all she could hear, she turned towards the ocean and carefully climbed the high, sharp rocks.
As she sat beside the pool, trailing her hand in the water, absorbed in her observations of the sea creatures, the ocean waves slowly reached for her, again and again, until it was lapping at her toes. The water came higher and higher, and she watched until each wave offered the fish a way back to the ocean.
Her heart lifted as she watched the fish escape the small tide pool in one wash of a wave and go back to their home in the wild deep.
Naiama came four times to her secret tide pool in the small cove, and the fourth time she came by moonlight. It seemed right, with the world coated in silver and silence, to be by the ocean she was learning to love more than fear.
This time, she walked past her tide pool to the edge of the rocks, and looked down into the deep black of the watery drop-off.
The night was still hot from the scorching sun, and she was curious. Finding a perfect hand-hold in the rock, she eased her body into the delightfully cool water.
With no solid place to plant her feet, she naturally started kicking. The water swirling around her legs felt foreign, and also familiar…
When she looked down and her feet were fins! I must be dreaming! She thought, and, with her curious nature, her next thought was: I wonder what else I can do in this dream?
She had often wondered what the fish saw in the water. So, still holding on to the rock, she took a deep breath and dunked her head under.
When she opened her eyes, the salt water stung at first…and then, it was soothing. It seemed that her eyes grew large, adjusting to see the moonbeams dancing in the dark water. Her dark hair floated around her face, air bubbles caught in the strands, like pearls. She found she could hold her breath for a very long time!
She finally surfaced with a huge smile and secret delight. Her excitement gave her courage, and her cove was small and familiar, so she took another breath and let go of the shore-rock.
She floated at first, suspended in the caress of the water. When she started to move, she found swimming to be the easiest thing in the world! The freedom from gravity was glorious, the softened sounds were soothing, the water nourished her skin and her hair and her soul. The depths. The ocean. Her home.